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Kendra Kassebaum a.k.a. Glinda the Good said in an interview:

WICKED is not just a re-telling of The Wizard of Oz. “It’s a new creation, it’s own, beautiful creation. It’s about tolerance and intolerance. It’s about cliques at school, romance with a ‘handsome prince,’ and how the outsider and the popular girl begin to connect. Adults appreciate all those things, too, but they’re also likely to get the darker, socio-political commentary in there, too. Nothing is ever quite as it seems.” That is why Wicked has appeal for all ages.

During the Thanksgiving Weekend, we went to check out Wicked @ Broadway, NY. It’s my 3rd musical that I’ve ever been and it has made quite the impact on my day to day. I listen to the soundtrack at least once a day. It’s one of the those pieces of music that the more you listen to it, it gets better and better. You hear the lyrics and you can discover that under the surface of this fantasy world, the lyrics are fully loaded with political and social undertones that describe the world that we live in.

I bought the book by Gregory Maguire and it really does a great job of creating an immersive world of Oz. Much of what goes on in Maguire’s Oz is a metaphor for what happens here in our world. It’s interesting to observe the events that happen in Oz during my TTC commutes. I got the book knowingly the play was ‘loosely’ based on this novel. The musical did a good job of adapting a book that is so dark and full of sexual connotations. There are a lot of differences between the book and the musical but it’s fun to find them out as they unravel when reading the novel. For instance, Doctor Dillamond was on the verge of a scientific breakthrough of demonstrating animal tissue is not very much different than human tissue. Therefore, animals would not be subjected to prejudice social practices. Before he got a chance to announce his discovery, the goat’s throat was slit by the secret police of the Wizard. Elphaba and Galinda witness his body being taken away by the medics. It’s at that point in the story that sets the wheels in motion that they must find out why did he die and avenge his death.

Julia Murney as Elphaba and Kendra Kassebaum as Glinda. We got tickets in Row W. Row W is like 2 rows away from the exit doors. But because Gershwin Theatre is small, the seats were pretty good. Best $300 I’ve ever spent!

Today, I attended a viewing for the father of a friend who passed away.

Immediately afterwards, I went to go celebrate…

A different friend had recently announced they are having a baby!

Sad News
Happy News
On this Day

I just remembered Carrie Lee mentioning the following a long time ago:

“Low maintenance doesn’t mean no maintenance (!) “

I always get a chuckle when I remember that.

I attended Ed’s 4th Annual Ultimate Paintball Event on July 15th. I had a lot of fun running, ducking, crouching, storming, and camping. Can’t wait til next year and get more peoples out. War of 1812!

Thx Jason Logan for being the day’s “Embedded Journalist”

187 Bay Street
Toronto, ON
416-214-9922
http://www.farnienterestaurant.com
Food Style: Continental
Dress: White-collar Business Attire

Located in the Financial district, the restaurant was full of suited ‘Bay Street’-ers who could be perceived to be talking about Thursday’s winners and losers on the TSE. The interior featured “clean lines and modern fixtures contributing to an atmosphere that is sophisticated yet inviting“. As for the food, I feel it lacked enough taste to induce any type of emotion. Aside from that, it is a great place to eat and kick back for some $10+ happy hour cocktails.

Fancy bread! (Thx Jaclyn for the pics)

Summerlicious Dinner ($35)

Tomato salad, Feta cheese watermelon cubs, with mint and basil
I like tomatoes but this was very boring. Tasted warm and bland. Feta cheese tasted pretty cheap. Other ingredients conflicted with each other. Mint + Watermelon = No No.

Roasted Halibut Split pea and pulled pork with grain mustard
It was good. Not awesome but good. Split pea…we all thought it was lentils. Halibut seemed very slim and unfulfilling but the split pea side compensated. It was very hearty with the fish and full of flavor.

Mocha Panacotta
Great presentation and a nice way to end the diner. It deceptively doesn’t seem like a lot but it was a nice thick chocolate flavored gelatin. However, I am not a big fan of chocolate and the alternative didn’t sound all that attractive (Peach Crisp, Vanilla Ice Cream).

Conclusion
Far Niente’s Summerlcious menu is nothing to rave as the best I’ve ever had but it was good for the atmosphere and service. I like to go to Summerlicious with the pre-conception that I’ll be experiencing stuff I would not ordinarily get the chance to try out. I walked out with a nice full stomach but the food does not have a lot of substance in itself to make it memorable.

Rating
2.75 commission-free trades out of 5.

100 Simcoe Street
Toronto, ON
416-979-7172
http://www.monsoonrestaurant.ca
Food Style: Asian Fusion
Dress: Smart Casual

Monsoon’s atmosphere is as great as the taste of the food they serve. Dark and very intimate, it has a very avant-garde Asian interior.Service was friendly, excellent, and timely. While some restaurants start you up with bread, Monsoon provides you with non-potato chips. As in sweet yams, cassava, and some other root vegetables. It was very unique as the small chip basket had an array of different flavors from sweet, salty and spicy.

Non-Summerlicious Appetizer

Tiger Prawn and Dungeness crab with a Thai Citrus Salad ($16)
This dish was good. However, we were paying a premium on the food. The value in this was the presentation. 4 fair sized prawns which must have been huge before cooking. Shreds of crab meat with a low-acidity citrus salad. The appetizer did its job leaving you craving for more food.

Summerlicious Dinner ($35)

Appetizer: Sosnicki’s Certified Organic Ruby Beets and Asian Pear Salad
When I go to a grocery store, beets are never on my list so I decided to try this out. It did not disappoint. It had a very unique taste I found. It was almost sweet like candy but not a of a processed kind. It had a very natural-occurring flavor. It had some side baby spinach and other greens. The 3 pieces of thinly sliced pears added to a full-bodied presentation. Good stuff!

Entree: Ultra Rare Tuna with a Scallion and Leek Pajon and Mirin Tamarind Paint
This sounds pretty exotic but the taste and texture of the food proved to be even more foreign in the mouth. The tuna was seared on both the top and the bottom. It was cooked 1/8 of an inch both sides. The remaining 6/8 inches between the cooked sides was straight up raw tuna. If you enjoy Japanese, this is definitely a twist on tuna sashimi having a large steak-like portion partially cooked. I have no idea what pajon is but it looked like a thin crepe whose tastes reminded me of a crossover between a pancake and the wrapper they use for Chinese dumping. The leek gave it a lot of flavor. As a side vegetable, the dish was accompanied by some glazed garlic bok choi. It was the most amazing bok choi I ever had.

Desert: Rhubarb and Strawberry Crumble with Lemon Chantily Cream
What I like most about this dish is that if you felt like you were ripped off cause all the portions were too small, this will prevent you from complaining because I believe the size of this desert was very generous. I had trouble trying to dust it off but I kept on going because it was so good. Eating until your stomach hurts from exceeding capacity is not a good idea but how often will you get a chance to eat something so fancy. One thought that came to mind is that there is nothing Asian about this.

Conclusion
I enjoyed this particular experience because it was not your typical beef, chicken, salmon, pasta Summerlicious entrees you would come to expect. I would definitely come back to this place outside of “-licious” events. I would also recommend it to people who are tired of greasy Chinese food and would like to try a new twist with asian fusion.

Rating
4.5 out of 5 chopsticks.

My dear friend Lisa wanted to come with us to Washington to visit a friend of hers while another friend and I went to a developer’s conference.

When she contacted him to let her know that she would be in town, he replied back that it was a different Washington.

I’ve annotated the map below to illustrate the difference in millage.

Click to enlarge

I’ve replied back to her with a “Ugggggggggh…..”

She is the front-runner for the 2007 “Uggggggggh” Award which is given to those who deserve an “A” for Affort.

Previous recipients include:

Brian writes a cheque (2005)
X-men 3: The worst sequal to a sequal (2006)

“Any show that you make, there is a certain amount of exploitation that takes place with people who are in front of the camera; you take something from them to create entertainment. And sometimes the balance is so out of whack that these people walk away from these shows in a terrible situation where they’re demoralized … I’m not judging it, but that’s not really what I want to make.”

- Phil Keoghan, host of “The Amazing Race”, on his new show called N.O.W. (http://www.noopportunitywasted.com)

lex says:
i missed your call last week..anything important?

false says:
it was so important that I don’t even know why i called you

false says:
i can’t even remember me calling you

false says:
might have been a mistake

lex says:
i feel so special

false says:
sorry

lex says:
no ..its too late..damage done

false says:
we can get through this

false says:
together

lex says:
i don’t know if we’ll ever be the same…

false says:
hahahhahahhaha

lex says:
hahaha

Somebody mentioned this to me already before but it was just recently when I figured it “all” out…

The question is why do we have “Enterainment Tonight”, “eXtra”, “US Weekly”, “Vogue”, “Cosmo”, and all those shows that feature Hollywood celebs and the paparatzzi who photograph them? Why do people give a f-ck about Lindsay Lohan who hasn’t done a decent movie since “Mean Girls”?

Is there a market for this type of information? Yes, there is a market. On first pass, there seems to be a crowd of people who actually do care to minimal extent of what happens to the “beautiful” people. It is these people who watch these shows and sit through the commercials. It is the same people who buy the publications and page through all the advertisements.

On a second pass, how are these TV shows and magazines able to sustain themselves? Through advertising of course. What do they advertise? They advertise products! What is the message that is delivered about what these products can do to people? They can make you “better”. People buy into this message consequentially buy the products. TV shows and magazines are able to sustain themselves. The cycle repeats. The profits grow.

On a third pass, what would drive people to buy stuff that would “enhance” them? It is because of “insecurity”. You and I, we all have it.